Wireless communication systems of various kinds are known in the art. Certain of these systems wirelessly send and receive digital data in the form of packets. Examples of such systems include General Packet Radio Service (“GPRS”) related systems, certain Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) systems, certain wireless Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (“TCP/IP”) based systems, Code Division Multiple Access (“CDMA”) 2000 systems, and other related systems. When data is transmitted in each of these systems, the data is divided into discrete packets, and each packet is further divided into a number of blocks or frames.
The frames can be sent and received using a variety of methods with varying aggressiveness and/or power efficiencies. Transmission methods with a higher aggressiveness are often preferred because more data is transmitted with the use of fewer control signals. By limiting the use of control signals, battery life can be extended or otherwise save power. Other transmission methods will vary the power of the transmissions to extend battery life or otherwise save power. Each of these transmission methods has a different target reliability of frame transmission or frame error rate.
During transmission, the receiver checks the received frames for errors. If an error is found within a frame or an expected frame is not received, the receiver will send an error message back to the transmitter such that the transmitter will retransmit that particular frame. If errors are received toward the end of a packet, however, the time to send an error message and then to receive the retransmitted or incremental redundant frame will delay the completion of the packet and thus extend the overall transmission time. Thus, the transmission methods with a higher aggressiveness or higher power efficiencies typically result in longer transmission times.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions with respect to their corresponding respective areas of inquiry and study except where specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.